I'm so happy that you had fun celebrating my birthday! Did you save me any pizza? Sounds like Ammons b-day was pretty busy! That's so fantastic that K came to church! That speaks volumes! That means so much, please don't under estimate how much that means! Serving specifically in the YSA in the states has taught me so much. Young people, or anyone really, are very hesitant to read something, especially a "new" religious text they are unfamiliar with. In addition to that, they just can't comprehend the importance of the Book of Mormon. I would kill to have some of our investigators at church!   Man, I really need to meet S! Make sure she's there when we skype on Mother's Day or something! I simply must meet this fantastical person! I did get the picture and recording! I'll have to go to a computer to access it though. The zone is doing amazing! It's don't a complete 180 since I've been here. It's now (almost) full of good hardworking missionaries that want to do what's right. There's a couple people here and there that are thorns in my side, but that's fine. All the good makes up for it! This week has just been fantastic! We had A"s baptism on Saturday! It was a bit of a mess because a family that is basically his family wanted to do everything.....so the musical number ended up falling through then I ran around to all of them before and told them what they were doing. It was hilarious! But it was a very nice baptism. A was so happy, he was just beaming from ear to ear! Then on Sunday after church, we got a series of texts from R, the girl we Tracted into who's whole family is on date for baptism now, and from C! This is what they said. "But what I wanted to tell you guys is that I'm a very emotional person. And I see all of you guys as one of the greatest blessings in my life. I thank God for sending you guys to our door. In just little time you have all impacted my life greatly, I will forever be thankful for all of you." - R

And then C...I texted him, "Hey C, we loved having you at church today! We hope you enjoyed it! Everyone loved seeing you there!" Then he said,

"I sure did enjoy it and Elder Johnson I have something for you I'll give it to you when I see you :) today on my way to the library I told my brother I have spiritual father who found me and he was like who, what are you talking about and I was like it's Johnson. He looked at me like okay your point is and I just smiled and he said your turning into one of those crazy mormans and I said to him yeah a crazed lover of Jesus." A couple days before, we got a text from a less active guy we've been teaching. We deleted the text, but it basically said, "Elder Johnson what made you know that God called you to be such a great Elder?" Those three texts just absolutely made my week this week! Filled my heart full of 'warm fuzzies!' Anyway.....ill send the pictures in my email to everyone! And please let me know if you got the pictures from last week!

Hunter

We also gave a Book of Mormon too a Reverend yesterday! He wasn't going to take it, but after a pleasant conversation and appealing to his expertise in theology we got him to take one! He said he was going to read it by himself and not talk to anyone, including his Pastor about it! Woohooooo!

Hahaha, dad, I'm happy you had fun dancing with mom! I just feel bad for the poor kids that had to see you dancing......:) That's too bad about S's Grandma. You should show her the mormon message by Pres. Monson I think it's called 'untill we meet again.' It's really nice. There's a fair share of missionaries that haven't been as diligent and committed as they should be out here. It really is just sad when they waste their life away like that. Being on a mission in southern Cali has drastically changed my outlook on a lot of things, especially my relationships with people. At least K is up in Utah! What a great place for her to be! Justus wants her to get baptized. Don't worry. If it doesn't go anywhere, eventually he'll realize it. That's the story with S right now! He's dating a member and has been for a year. But now he's finally going to get baptized in April! Woohoooo! I'm so happy that you found Ranger! That is excellent! The power of prayer is real!!! 

In other news......It's really awesome working with Elder F. We have a baptism this weekend. I'll send pictures next week! We had a big long talk with C yesterday. He told us he was going to get baptized in another church on Sunday, so I told him to ask them with what authority they were baptizing him with. Turns out he didn't get baptized, so we asked him why yesterday when we were over. He was to scared to ask them the question. Because he knows they wouldn't be able to answer it and would put him on the spot and ask him why! So they interrogated him last night.....we still need to find out how that went. I told him we were proud of his decision to get baptized, just a little disappointed he was doing it in the wrong church! But to go ahead with it, because if he did he would just be getting wet and can still get baptized the right way! We shared the story of Paul going and baptizing people again who hadn't done it the right way. We asked him how he felt at the baptism and he just started talking about how awesome it was and how their faces were glowing! So we asked him if there was any part of him that did not want that. He thought for a bit and then said no. So we're just going to wait for the spirit to work on him! We taught a new investigator we found yesterday. We put her on date for March! But we have to pass her to a family Ward. That's ok. That's about all that's going on right now. If I think of anything else I'll let you know!

Hunter 

1. Elder D

2. I'm teaching a horse

3. Les trés amígos! They were all sitting down, so I whistled and got them all to look at the same time. The leg belongs to a guy named J that we're teaching 

Hey everyone! So this week has been fantastic! I am staying in the YSA Ward for six more weeks. Wooooohooooo! We were able to teach and talk to a bunch of people and we had stake conference!!! I want to share two stories. One is a story that was shared with me last Monday.

Another is a story from Stake Conference. Here is the first. It took place in 1974 during a sacrament meeting. This young man was preparing to leave on his mission and was giving his farewell talk, and this is what he said.

"Brothers and Sisters, as you know, the last two weeks, I've been waiting for my mission call. During the time I was waiting I had a dream. I knew it wasn't an ordinary dream. I dreamed I was in the pre-existence (where we lived with God as spirits) and awaiting my call to come to earth. I was filled with the same anticipation and excitement that I had before I received my mission call. In my dream, I was talking to a friend, and I felt a special closeness to him, even though I've never met him in this life. As we talked, a messenger came and gave me a letter. I knew it was my call to go to earth. In great excitement, my friend and I opened the letter. I gave it to him and asked him to read it aloud. It said, 'You've been called to earth in a special time and in a special land. You will be born to the true church and will have the Priesthood of God in your home. You will be born in a land of plenty, in a land of freedom. You will go to the earth in the United States of America.' My friend and I rejoiced as we read my call, and while we were rejoicing, the messenger returned.

This time he had my friends call. He told me to read it aloud. It said, 'You've been called to go to the earth in circumstances of poverty and strife. You will not be raised in the true church. Many hardships will attend your life. Your land will be fraught with political and social difficulties, which will hinder the work of the Lord. You will be born in Costa Rica.' We wept, my friend and I as we read his call, and my friend looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, 'When we are down on earth, please come and find me.' Then, the missionary giving his farewell talk said, with tears in his eyes, 'Brothers and Sisters, I have received my mission call. I'm going to Costa Rica.' About a year later, the bishop of that Ward received a letter from that missionary with only four words. 'I FOUND MY FRIEND!!!'"

Story 2. This was from Stake Conference. I'm telling it as best as I remember.

There was a man born.....somewhere in Idaho. He was born into the church, but in his early 20's decided he was going to do what he wanted. So he joined the Hells Angels, and rode around with them for a little upwards of 20 years. One night he got kind of wasted and the next morning decided he needs to detox and do an evaluation of his life, so he went to one of their detox houses. Not sure what state it was in. He was sitting on the porch and praying, asking God what he wanted him to do. He saw two young men walking down the street. These houses of theirs are gated, and guarded by Dobermans that are trained to attack people when they come close to the gate. The missionaries saw the dogs and rather quickly walked on. When they were about 100 meters away, he saw them stop. Then they started coming back. As they approached the gate the dogs rushed up to it! Only to turn around before they got to the gate and go lay back down. The two missionaries opened the gate, walked in and came up to the man. One of them asked him if he knew some person and some person. The man replied, "Yes, they are my parents." To which the young missionary replied, "Then I am your brother."

The reason I wanted to share these stories is that they epitomize my feelings towards missionary work. I just want all of you to know, the Gospel is true. I know this is the work of the Lord. I know that there are specific people and reasons I am here for. I know God loves us all individually and infinitely. I have seen His hands and His face in this work. I love all of you so much!

Hunter

 This is C, Elder F, me, and B. B is his fellowshipper and is an RM as of about 4 months ago. He is awesome.

Right before we took the picture, he muttered to me, "The next time we take this we're going to be wearing white!"

This week was great! C called and said he was going to come to church and wanted to try meeting with us again! We were so excited!  It's great to hear that T's eagle project went so well! Send me some pictures of it! Did you get the pictures of me holding the monkey's hand? That's awesome that you and mom are speaking in Stake Conference! I think some things that have helped are family keep the Sabbath Day Holy are.....going to church, cooking nice meals, playing music together, doing our family scripture study, personal scripture study, taking a nap, doing home teaching, doing fathers interviews, (btw dad, you've got no idea how many times I bring those up when teaching people, I'm so glad you did those with us on a fairly regular basis)......some things I would add that I don't think we did often would be inviting non-members/investigators over for a meal, having a less active over for a meal, playing a nice game, scripture trivia games, going out with the missionaries.....that's about all I can think of! There is this awesome talk on the sabbath day I just read. It's called 'The Sabbath Day' by Mark E. Peterson from April 1975. It is awesome!! I recommend reading it before putting your talk together, although you've probably already read it because I feel like you've already read everything in the gospel library and most of LDS.org. Anyhow, Your prayers are helping! We just had a lesson with S again and we are going to be putting him on date for April sometime near the end of February. A is getting baptized on the 20th, is awesome, and he is going to start coming out with us to teach people! We just got him his own PMG today from the office. He is completely solid. Here's a list of our investigators that we're focusing on. A, A, M, C, D, R, and H. We're continuing to find lots more to teach every week! We have a goal of handing out 10 book of Mormons every week. Last week we gave away 16!! In any case, they do more good sitting on someone else's bookshelf than ours! Not anything really exciting happened this week other than this young mom we talked to. We were just about to walk by her, then we both turned around at the same time and started to talk to her! She looked like she was about to cry, so we just talked about how much God loves and cares about her and shared a scripture from the Book of Mormon with her. We asked if we could come back and she said yes of course, whenever we want! It's so cool how the spirit just works on people that are humble and have an open heart! Anyhow, love you tons! 

Hunter